The Hiatus is Over

              I'm back!  After 3 busy weeks of traveling Europe.  I am back in Copenhagen and back to blogging.  I apologize for not being active in the past few weeks, but my access to the internet was limited.  I will do my best to update you all on my adventures over the past 3 weeks.  I will try to summarize because I could write forever about this vacation.

        My first stop was London, England.  The DIS program does a great job of connecting traveling and the classroom.  The first week of our 3 week break is a "Study Tour" with your core class.  My class "News Media in Transition" traveled to London and our academic visits focused around media studies.  The program director Jacob and one of our professors, Marie, traveled with us and showed us around.  Some of our visits included: a tour of behind-the-scenes BBC, an advertising chat with The Telegraph, and a visit to the Oxford Editors.  All the visits were extremely interesting and DIS has a lot of connections to get us some special VIP treatment.  We also had some really great visits to monuments, attractions and museums.  One of the coolest things that we had the opportunity to do was to take a ride on the London Eye.  The Eye is a 135-meter-tall ferris wheel.  Each pod can house about 15 people and the view from the top is truly breathtaking.  We took our "flight", as it is called, right at sunset.  It was amazing to see the city illuminated by the setting orange sun.  It was one of those "pinch me" moments where it is hard for me to believe that this is really my life.  In addition to The Eye, we saw Shakespeare's Globe Theater, the Tate Museum of Modern Art, Buckingham Palace and spent a day exploring Oxford.  We even got to see some sites in Oxford where they filmed scenes from the Harry Potter movies.  Our tour guide even made us act out a scene from the movie.  I don't think I have laughed so hard in my life as Jacob, the program director, cast a spell towards Harry Potter.  Very memorable!  One night DIS also got us tickets to see Spamalot.  Spamalot is the musical adaptation of Monty Python and The Holy Grail.  It was a lot of fun and tons of laughs.

        We concluded our trip on Thursday.  About half of the class flew back to CPH with the tour leaders.  However, I found cheap tickets to continue on right from London to my next stop, Florence.  I did have some extra time before my flight, so some of the other kids who stayed and I decided to see another musical.  We got half price tickets to see Wicked.  It was a really amazing musical!  You honestly get goosebumps during some of the songs because the London cast was so good!  When we arrived at the  theater just as I entered the doors I literally bumped into a friend from SLU, Chelsea.  It was very strange to accidentally bump into her at the musical.  Chelsea and I were actually in the same FYP and she is studying in London this semester.  Her parents were visiting her in London and took her out to the show.  We didn't have too much time to catch up because the show was starting.  It really makes the saying "small world" seem so true.  After the show, I jetted off to Florence, actually to meet up with some other friends from FYP studying there.  They were able to show me around Florence.  It was really nice to have some personal tour guides during my stay.  They showed me the Duomo (and we climbed to the top), Michelangelo's David, Fiesole ruins, and the house where they live with a host family.  We also went to a cool night-spot called JJ's Cathedral right next to the Duomo.  It was kind of required... I mean my name is Josh Johnson, so it only seemed right.  It was their midterms week, so I continued on with some other friends to Rome.  Again, I actually bumped into some friends accidentally when we were in the Vatican.  I was walking through the Vatican Museum on my way to the Sistine Chapel when I heard somebody say my name.  I kind of dismissed it because I figured nobody knows me in the middle of the Vatican.  Then my friend Liz (another friend from FYP) grabbed my shoulder.  It was baffling to see her.  I could hardly believe it.  She was traveling with a DIS Study Tour called Italian Renaissance.  So she was with a bunch of other people I knew as well! REALLY SMALL WORLD!  We ended up meeting up that night at Trevi Fountain and then having a great dinner at a street restaurant.  After dinner we finished off with the Italian classic: gelato.  YUM!  The whole night felt very "hygge" with good food, candlelight, and great friends.  Hygge is the much used Danish word for "cozy" or "snug."  But the Danes love the word, it is somewhat of a cultural key word and is said to not have any direct possible translation.  Also in Rome I saw the Colosseum, Roman Forum, St. Peters Basilica, the Pantheon and much more.  The last stop in Italy was Pisa.  My friend Beth and I took a train from Rome to Pisa.  We got a great picnic lunch to eat on the way.  It consisted of some fruits, veggies, Italian wine, scrumptious Italian bread, and a big tub of peanut butter which is essentially impossible to find in Denmark.  I was in peanut butter withdrawal so it was really nice to pick some up.  In Pisa we of course did the classic Leaning Tower.  Beth and I actually climbed it.  We debated doing it or not because it cost quite a few Euros, but we figured when will be ever get the chance again.  It was worth it and we got a beautiful view of the city.  The next day, my friends from FYP and Florence, Emily and Amanda, met back up with me in Pisa and we went to our next destination: AMSTERDAM!

        We got in very late at night so the first day we just found the hotel and crashed.  The next day we went to the Anne Frank house.  A very interesting first stop in Holland.  Next I got the chance to meet up with a friend from high school.  She was an exchange student my senior year and lives just outside Amsterdam.  So again it was really wonderful to have a personal tour guide that knows the sites and place to go.  So my friend, Nienke, and her boyfriend showed us the city.  We had a really great dinner at a fancy restaurant and got to see some really beautiful places that are not so "touristy."  Throughout the next five days we saw the Van Gogh Museum, took a Canal-Bus tour, did a little shopping, and I found my new favorite restaurant.  Bagels and Beans is a really great chain restaurant in Holland that makes insanely good bagel sandwiches and delicious drinks.  If I could go there everyday, I probably would!  The last day we went to a science museum called Nemo... we couldn't pass it up!  It was a lot of hands-on fun and a great way to wrap up.

        For my final stop on my traveling extravaganza, I left Amsterdam and flew to Stockholm to meet up with my family who live there.  It was the best way to end the 3 weeks of travel because I stayed with them in their home and could unwind a little.  Traveling so much actually gets very tiring.  It was nice to just do some family things and not be running from attraction to attraction.  I also spent Halloween there, which was pretty cool because I got to carve pumpkins with my younger relatives, see some little trick-or-treaters, and we even made pumpkin pie from real pumpkin.  Thats something I haven't even done in the states,  we always just use the canned stuff.  Ha ha!  Also, my family made me a big "Early Thanksgiving" dinner because I would be missing it at home for the first time in my life.  We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and the whole thing!  Even though we did relax, I also got a chance to see some cool things in Stockholm.  We walked around Gamla Stan (the old city), went to Skansen (the world's oldest open-air museum), and much more.  By the end of break I really didn't want to leave my new Swedish home.  But I had to get back for classes the next Monday.

        Upon returning, it was hard to believe I was back in Copenhagen.  It made me feel like CPH had really become "normal" for me (not in a bad way).  It seemed natural to grab the B-train that night and head towards Hoje Taastrup once again.  It is cool to have become so accustomed to Copenhagen that I could now just jump on the train, read some signs, speak a little Danish, and fit right in.  Yet school hit me like a ton of bricks because I have tons of projects, papers, and finals just on the horizon.  I can hardly believe that there is only about 5 weeks left!  It really blows my mind.

        To sound a little corny for a moment...  I feel like I have really grown during my time abroad.  I feel very adult being able to do so many things on my own.  I was able to plan transportation, housing, meals, etc. for 3 weeks in Europe all by myself.  It has made me realize that going abroad is definitely not just an education within the classroom.  It is an opportunity to discover yourself and develop as a person.  You have to be able to deal with the unexpected everyday and go with the flow.  I think it is also an education in life skills: making a budget, scheduling your time, balancing work and fun, meeting new people, learning by experience, and much more.  These skills and lessons are truly invaluable.  For this I say "Thanks SLU" for this incredible opportunity!